FEATURED ARTICLES ABOUT ANTARCTICA - PAGE 3

By Rasik Ravindra December 14, 2011, and January 18, 2012, marked the centenary celebrations of the two greatest explorers', Roald Amundsen and Robert Falcon Scott, journey to the Antarctic. They were pioneers who were the first to reach the South Pole. Though Antarctica still remains an enigma, from the point of being isolated, mysterious and inhospitable, there is, however, greater accessibility through air and sea facilities, ice runways etc being offered by various science programmes and the adventure tourism industry.

PANAJI: Almost twenty-eight years after it set up the first permanent research station in the South Polar region, India is all set to commission and occupy third such station, named as 'Bharti', in Antarctica by March next year, a senior scientist associated with the project said today. After 'Bharti' becomes operational, India will join the league of select nations that have multiple operation stations in the region. The National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR)

Look who we spotted: Expeditions to Antarctica is for the daredevils. But then this off-beat tour trend is rising steadily with Indians. On the tour, travellers cross by the popular Paulet Island to watch penguin colonies on huge iceberg. Join in the fun! Long gone are the days when a vacation meant a stroll by the beachside, a romantic dinner with your partner and some shopping to get back fond memoirs of the destination you would visit. The entire concept has innovated with the new outlook of daredevilry.

NEW DELHI: Days before the Copenhagen conference on climate change kicks off, a major study by a group of 100 international scientists has said that sea levels are likely to rise by as much as 1.4 metres (more than 4 feet) by the end of this century. That's twice as much as previously predicted in IPCC's fourth assessment report of 2007. The report released by the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) is the first comprehensive review of the impact of global warming on Antarctica.

KATHMANDU: In a first, four members of an all-women Nepalese expedition team have scaled the highest peaks on all the seven continents. The team began their quest in 2008 by climbing Mount Everest and finally scaled Mt Vinson in Antarctica on December 23 last year. They became the first all-women expedition group to climb the peaks on the seven continents. Of the seven-membered group-- Chunu Shrestha, Nimdoma Sherpa, Pema Diki Sherpa and Maya Gurung-- succeeded in climbing all the seven peaks.

SAO PAULO: UN chief Ban Ki-moon will fly into tropical Brazil on Monday to further push his campaign for world action on climate change, after making a trip to chilly Antarctica. The secretary general was making the snow-to-jungle voyage to see firsthand the damage man is wreaking on the environment. On Friday, he became the first head of the UN to set foot in Antarctica. There, he received a briefing from scientists at Chile's President Eduardo Frei Air Force base before visiting glaciers that were shrinking under the effects of global warming.

WASHINGTON: The United States has named a mountain in Antarctia in honour of an eminent Indian-American scientist whose pioneering biological research expedition has provided critical data about animal populations. Akhouri Sinha, adjunct professor in the Department of Genetics, Cell Biology and Development at the University of Minnesota, was recognised by the US Geological Survey, which named the mountain Mt Sinha, for his work he did as an explorer in 1971-72. Sinha was a member of a team that catalogued population studies of seals, whales and birds in the pack ice of the Bellingshausen and Amundsen Seas using US Coast Guard Cutters Southwind and Glaciers in 1972 and 1974.

LONDON: Passengers, who survived the shipwreck of cruise liner Explorer, have revealed that they countered their fear by cracking jokes about the original Titanic disaster in 1912. The tourists disclosed their "Titanic moment" when they were set floating in darkness in lifeboats and rubber dinghies after the ship was holed below the water line. They said that they fought their panic by saying jokes about the world's biggest passenger liner that hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sank with the loss of 1,490 lives.

NEW DELHI: Himalayan nations, including India and China, will be affected in a big way by the melting of the ice in Arctic and the glaciers in Himalayas, Iceland President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson today warned as he asked parties and organisations to hold dialogue to deal with the issue. Noting that the Arctic, the Himalayas and Antarctica (AHA) are not isolated and separate parts of our global, he said their fate and fate of the people and future are closely connected. Addressing a special session on "The AHA Moment: India and our Ice-Covered World" organised by the Aspen Institute India here, Grimsson said the future of Himalayan nations will depend profoundly on the understanding of the science that ice is melting and also in reaching cooperation among nations to tackle the crisis looming large before them.

Today's traveller wants more than just a stamp on his passport or a souvenir tee shirt to remind him of his last trip. He wants experiences that bring to mind the adrenaline rush of diving out of an airplane or of visiting one of the coldest places in the world to come up close to a manatee. This is Adventure and the discerning traveller is asking for bigger doses with each new trip. The hunger to explore the unexplored, to push your body and mind to its limits and to discover virgin destinations where nature still reigns — that is what drives the modern traveller to visit places like the Amazon in Brazil, Patagonia in Chile and Deception Island in Antarctica.